This short Q&A with Martin follows on from the Article Venturing Out Alone, which he read for us at the start of the month. We talked about the types of adventurous activities Martin likes to do, what he would say to someone else who has an epilepsy diagnosis, and - of course - what adventure means to him!
So, first off as I have to ask everyone and I thought I do this at the start this time, what does adventure mean to you?
I would say event adventure means to me um um exploring the unknown and having fun.
Beautiful. I love that. I don't know how much people have actually said having fun yet! What's the type of adventures that you enjoy most?
I like hiking a bit. I like what a wide wide range of anything really. I used to be a scout, so I did do like things like archery and canoeing. So yeah, it's kind of like physical recreation, you know?
Yeah, that is super adventurous. I never did anything like the Scouts when I was younger, so I'm always a bit jealous when people talk about stuff like that. You do travel a fair amount in regular times. We are unfortunately still in second Covid lockdown at the moment, but what was the last adventure that you had?
Well, that's the thing... Just so I could get something something in this year, I did go to Scotland this year. Yeah, I went, I went on this whole tour, actually with my mum, you know? We went to the Isle of Skye and the Highlands.
But the last big adventure was when I went to South America. I went to Bolivia and Chile and Argentina and I went to places like the salt flats, things like that.
Yes we have a great picture on the Seize Your Adventure Instagram actually from when you went...
Yeah, with the dinosaur.
That's the one! There are some great photos from when you were out there and some great ones from Scotland as well. You always make me jealous when you're going abroad... And you said that you didn't know very much about epilepsy before you were diagnosed. What is the one thing that you would say to people who don't know very much about epilepsy?
Hmmm. Maybe if they don't know much about it, maybe they can look into it. Sort of, research it. And maybe make sure that they are diagnosed properly. Since having my Instagram profile, I've heard of people, they've been misdiagnosed.
That's a really good point. Speak to other people and learn as much about it as you can about epilepsy. I was going to ask you a little bit about your epilepsy. We heard about your first seizure in the story. How are your seizures now?
I don't have that many tonic-clonic seizures, they're mainly controlled but I do have the odd partial seizure now and again.
With you being able to go and travel by yourself, being able to control it with your medication mostly is really good to hear. My last question is: what's your NEXT adventure?
I'm thinking about doing-- have you ever heard about this one million steps? You know there's International Epilepsy Day every year. I'm thinking about doing like... it's not one million or 50,000, whatever, it's X amount of steps. And, you know, you put in that you're walking X amount of steps, and I'm thinking about doing that. Because, you know, I've always wanted to fundraise. That's like the beginning of 2021.
Find out more about Martin's steps for Epilepsy on his Instagram profile @EpilepsyTraveller.
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